Acer Senior VP: "I Don't Think MS Surface Will Be Successful"

Hardware manufacturer Acer's senior VP and president for Europe, Middle East and Africa has rained a little on Microsoft Surface's parade, casting doubts over the chances of success for Microsoft's upcoming tablet, and expressing concerns over Microsoft's focus, whic hcould have a knock-on effect for partners such as Acer.

"I don't think it will be successful because you cannot be a hardware player with two products," Acer's Oliver Ahrens told Reuters.

"Microsoft is working with two dozen PC vendors worldwide, including the local guys, whereas Apple is alone, it can more or less do what it wants. Microsoft is a component of a PC system. A very important component but still a component."

There were also concerns regarding Acer's relationship with Microsoft, and how the "defocusing" of the latter could lead to potential problems.

"Instead of enhancing the user experience for Win 8 [...] they open a new battlefield," he continued. "I worry that this will lead into a defocus internally for Microsoft, and then we have to suffer because we are working with their products."